Steve Geddes's page

Apologies if this is the wrong forum, please move it to wherever it should go if not here..

I had a query regarding what constitutes "commercial use":

Is it ok for me to pay professionals to produce artwork, do layout, etcetera for inclusion of in something produced under the community use policy provided I was providing it totally free of charge (and had ownership of the rights to all that artwork and so forth)?

I wondered whether doing so would result in triggering the "If Paizo believes that you are in the publishing business..." clause.

Further details:

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Hi Paizo CS people

I think this has happened to me before and I dont need to worry. Nonetheless, could someone confirm that this DCC book which has been pending for several days and is now showing as a "backorder" is, in fact, a backorder for any orders placed now but that my copy is on it's way?

Cheers
Steve

The above reminder is exceptionally useful, since there are many products I um and ah over to the point where I cant remember if I ever actually went ahead or not.

Any chance it could delineate between print, PDF or both for those products where there are those options? It's kind of embarassing to admit, but there have been one or two times when I have the PDF of something but I cant remember if the print copy should be on my shelf or if I've possibly lent it out, sold it or given it away.

It's admittedly not something which comes up a lot (and I can always comb through past orders, but that is becoming more and more of a chore as time goes on..). I figured it cant hurt to ask - in case it would be an easy change to implement.

Hi Paizo CS/IT people

I was just browsing my account and happened to confirm I had a pending store credit of $1600 (in preparation for the RoTRL minis later in the year). I also saw a bunch of things waiting for the next subscription shipment and decided to click the "Ship as soon as possible" button.

That took my to the order page, when I remembered an annoying thing about that button - namely that it dumps all the preordered items in with the items in my sidecart (and implies nothing is going to ship until all my preorders have arrived). I therefore decided to cancel that order and returned to my account...

To see that my store credit is now showing only $817.41. Would you be able to look into this for me? I didnt intend to apply any of the credit yet. I'm pretty sure I only hit the 'cancel' button, which shouldnt have changed anything, right?

As a secondary thing - if you could organise shipping my sidecart (or everything that's ready to go, anyhow - presumably the Slumbering Tsar hardcover is still not available) to me by USPS priority mail and charge my credit card then I'd appreciate it.

Hope that's all clear - please let me know if you need any further information.

Cheers
Steve

If I redeem my gift certificates but leave the "apply credit to subscriptions" option unchecked, will the credit just sit there forever until I choose to apply it?

Also, I want to use the certificates for for the RotRL miniatures shipment. If I redeem them all and check that option just before the next pf battles shipment, will everything work out?

Steve Geddes wrote:

It's not strictly on-topic, but since you're reading...

I won't buy a PDF only product. I was really keen to see the evil themed AP but, despite being a niche not filled anywhere else, the fact it was only available in digital format eventually ruled it out for me. I appreciate it's not an insignificant thing (and may well be impossible) - perhaps kickstarter/preorders/subscriptions/print-on-demand or some other clever model might work but, for me at least, if it's not in book form I'm not going to look, no matter how cool the idea is.

I only mention it as information for you, not because I expect it to be fulfilled (and I have no idea how common this PDF-aversion is).

Sorry to bother, but I am hoping I can get a better more detailed response to your comment. I don't understand why the print version is "better" (my emphasis) than a PDF version? Most likely due to the nature of print, the product will cost at least double and sometime more then it's PDF version. Since the information that is being delivered is the same and just the method of delivery is different, do you think paying double or more the cost of the product delivery is a OK?

Don't want to put you on the spot with your answer, just trying to understand better as a 3PP of Pathfinder material ans what customers want.

Thanks for the follow up - it's no bother.

I'm somewhat idiosyncratic, I guess, but the cost is pretty much irrelevant to me. I'm of the opinion that RPG supplements are too cheap as it is, given the niche market and size of print runs. I personally wish the accepted price was higher so it was easier for publishers to stay in business and splash out on print costs. I'm fortunate enough to have a decent income and am very happy to direct a significant part of that towards my favorite hobby. Obviously, there is a significant portion of the market who are price sensitive, so I dont think my view is something a 3PP should act on. I've been very glad to see kickstarter take off, actually, since that seems an ideal, relatively low risk way to offer cheap PDFs and expensive print products - I'm not sure if it would be possible to limit the tiers on offer based on patronage (I'm thinking something like offering $20 support for the PDF, $40 for a b/w print copy and $75 for a color print copy - each tier only being offered provided 100 backers signed up or something) - a scheme like that might be a way of testing the different sizes of the various markets.

To be clear about the strength of my preference though, I take Paizo's free player guides to a professional printer and get two copies printed and bound in an identical manner to the player guides - the only distinguishing feature is the watermark at the bottom. The cost for that is more than an individual AP each (it varies somewhat, but is around $50 for a pair). If I could find a way to easily concatenate PFS scenarios, I'd pay a couple of hundred dollars to get a single season bound and printed to a similar standard.

The main thing for me isnt cost at all - the fact is, I dont use free PDFs, let alone cheap ones. I dont like reading on a screen and dont use computers at the table. A PDF is almost no value to me (I have printed out the odd picture or player handout, but not so I'd notice).

Hi Erik and Cosmo

I noticed the slumbering Tsar hardcover compilation is listed in this order as 'preorder' and that none of the other, non-subscription items are (they all show as 'pending').

Does that imply that something has gone screwy (or worse that this order might sit alone and unloved in your warehouse whilst the world passes it by?) If that item is going to hold up the shipment at all, would you mind sticking it back in my sidecart?

Cheers
Steve

Is there any chance Pathfinder/Golarion might utilise the same source of funding?

I'm thinking for those awkward projects that dont quite fit - I believe there's a view that boxed sets arent generally economically feasible, for example. A suitably structured kickstarter might attract enough heavy backers to get something like that off the ground without tying up (financial) capital.

Hi paizo CS people

I preordered a couple of extras of these and I want to check I'm going to get two subscription copies as well? (ie four all up)

Just a thumbs up for this (I have no idea how new it is, but I've only just noticed it). It's great to see an estimate of upcoming charges and shipping dates that far out (even if they turn out to shift somewhat).

Would you be able to cancel this order, please? It's currently in my sidecart.

On a sidenote - this is the second thread I've made about this, but the other one seems to have disappeared into the ether. It's still showing on my "recent threads" page, but I can't seem to see it on the messageboards.

Cheers

EDIT: Okay, that's weird. Now I can see the original thread, but can't open it.

Would you be able to remove the "miskatonic school for girls" from my sidecart please? It was for a friend of mine who has since read a bunch of reviews and doesn't want it any more.

I'm undergoing a semi-regular purge of RPG bits and pieces and the following are the remnants of what I havent given away or sold. I plan on putting them on Ebay next week or so, but if anyone is interested I'd rather send them to a good Paizonite home. I'll be listing them on Ebay at $5 each - anyone here is welcome to grab them for that price (send me a pm if you're interested or post here if you need any information about any of the books). If we agree on everything, I'll ship them to you and you can make sure they're in the condition I say they are - then buy me some Paizo gift certificates for whatever price we set. (I can entertain some other method if you prefer, but that seems easiest).

The good: They're all in good (if not excellent) condition. Some I've only ever flipped through once then stuck them on the shelf for a couple of years.

The bad: I'm in Australia, and although I'm happy to sell them cheaply, I'll charge whatever it costs me for shipping - so that might make it impossible.

The ugly: I'm not really interested in bundling up one or two books at a time, so please limit any expressions of interest to 'bundles' of half a dozen or so.

The list:

I couldnt find anywhere that really fits, but is there a forum where people might list RPG supplements or whatever they have for sale to other Paizonites? (Or is that allowed, come to think of it?)

I picked up one of the encounter packs in order 1948814 and used one of the one-off discounts I was entitled to as a PF Battles subscriber. On my subscriptions page, it doesnt appear to have registered that the code is no longer available for use.

I'm afraid I'm not 100% sure which code I applied, but I suspect it was the one which expires 10:51pm.

My shipping email arrived.

I havent been so excited to get an email since that lucky day when the Ex-treasurer of Nigeria offered to split his ill-gotten gains with me.

Is there any possibility of listing the "will ship with a future subscription shipment" preorders in the order they are expected to be released? (With the dateless ones either at the top or bottom?)

I know the expected date is no guarantee, but if it's something relatively simple to code, it would be nice to see them listed in the order they're likely to arrive.

Can someone confirm for me that I understand the subscription shipping options correctly?

Subscription shipping options:

Hold for monthly shipment

Ship my subscription products once a month, so I'll pay only one shipping charge.

Means that everything gets bundled together and ships when the AP instalment is ready (and that this is not necessarily monthly, despite the explication) including all pathfinder, gamemastery and pathfinder battles subscriptions.

Never hold anything

Ship items as they become available and I'll pay separate shipping charges for each item.

Means that all gamemastery and pathfinder subscriptions still get bundled up and shipped together (when an AP instalment is ready to go) but that the pathfinder battles subscription will be treated as a separate shipment.

.
Is that right? I'm nervous about the second option, since the option as I understand it is what I want (send everything together except for the pathfinder battles cases) but it kind of reads that I'll be shipped any old item as soon as it arrives (so if the AP is held up but the next flipmat arrives, I'll get sent that immediately).

Can someone also confirm that, should I choose to utilise the "Use any available store credit for my subscription orders" option, it will also be applied to my pathfinder battles subscription? (This seems pretty obvious, but it's going to be an awkward oversight if it's not actually true...)

Isnt part of being a monk having cool ki-like powers, being able to dance around through combat kicking things and generally shrug off attacks which would fell a lesser person? I dont really understand why the classes need to be balanced with respect to combat - isnt the style worth something?

It seems to me that many of the people declaring monks to be underpowered are still actually seeing them used in play. So presumably the people playing them are getting what they want.

I wonder whether the 'monk furore' is a function of a segment of the fan-base expecting combat-balanced classes when that isnt actually a terribly important part of the design philosophy being followed. (Not that I have any inside information as to what the design philosophy actually is).

It just seems to me that 'class X is underpowered' is often put forth as something obviously wrong and I'd be curious what the justification is for striving for class balance?

Hi Paizo

I got a little confused earlier today when I placed order #2013802. Cosmo has now sorted everything out for me and explained what was going on, but I thought I'd mention it here, since it seems a little odd to me.

I ordered what the last item you had in stock and so the store shifted it to a backorder. However, my notification (both email and onscreen) showed that my order was also a backorder (I got that "This wont ship until all backorders have been received") rather than indicating my order had been sucessfully filled. It also showed as a backorder rather than a pending shipment on my 'my account' page.

Consequently I asked CS to cancel it (since an impulse purchase is not the kind of thing you want to wait a few months for) which is when Cosmo set me straight on what was going on. The thing is, I may not have mentioned why I wanted it cancelled - in which case you would have lost a sale.

I just wondered if it would be possible to prepare all the order confirmation emails/notifications/etcetera before shifting the item's listing to backorder status. I have no idea if this is a problem that happens a lot (or if I'm the only one to get confused) but it seemed like it would make more sense, to me at least.

Cheers
Steve

Hi Paizo

This seemed to be listed as in-stock (with an estimated shipping time of 2-6 days), but switched to a backorder once I confirmed my payment method.

Could you cancel it please? (I'm not even sure it's going to end up being produced, to be frank).

Cheers
Steve

I dont have much to add to the title, obviously.

Any thoughts?

It doesn't appear to be anything more than cosmetic, but I just changed my address and during that process was presented with a text box showing two pathfinder tales subscriptions (i only want one copy) and only one game mastery cards subscription (of which I usually get two copies).

It appears I'm due the correct items when I check my upcoming shipments, but thought I'd mention it, since it seemed a little odd.

Hi Paizo

This is probably the wrong forum, so please move this to wherever it should go if that's the case.

WoTC's catalog shows The Dungeon Survival Handbook as being due for release on the 15th of May. I know they've been chopping and changing their release schedule of late, but I note that this isnt showing as a preorder here.

Do you have any word on this from your distributor? Are you planning on getting it in?

Cheers

(I also struggled to find Menzoberranzan on paizo.com although that's not due out until August, so that was less surprising).

Hi Paizo

Erik kindly organised shipping my sidecart for me, given the subscriptions have been a little delayed. However, the order seems to have been stuck at 'pending' for quite some time.

Is that perhaps because there's just one item holding things up? If there's some technical glitch and things are just proceeding slowly, there's no real worries. However, if this shipment is just waiting on one item, perhaps you would be able to put the delaying item into my sidecart again and ship everything else? I'm going to be rocking back and forth in an asylum making disturbing noises if I dont get at least some substantial shipment from you guys this month.

Cheers
Steve

Hi there - not sure where this should go, so please put it wherever the powers that be think it belongs...

I was wondering if those who may have used mixtures of minis and pawns might comment on how it looked? I know part of the decision to go with pawns over counters was that they would look better with miniatures. Do they look ok together?

The latest legends and lore column

I really like this, although I'm willing to bet it would be contentious. It highlights the abstract nature of hit points - rather than exacerbating the easy-to-fall-into-trap of thinking of them as physical damage or lack thereof.

I found the poll from last week illustrative too. Broadly, Vancian, At-will/Encounter/Daily and point-based all had sizable proportions of the fanbase preferring them. I have relatively high hopes that this at least can be addressed through the modularity of the system they're shooting for.

At least those things which are pretty much ready to go. I tried the 'ship everything' button, but it seems to be picking up all the preorders as well.

It also wouldnt let me choose shipping options - if you could send it priority USPS, that'd be great.

I have this weird intermittent bug when I try to place an order. From time to time, the 'shipments' section shows up for an instant before getting whited out - I can't see what the shipment is, can't change whether to place it in my sidecart or send it immediately, etcetera.

It's just happened when I try to 'ship my sidecart as soon as possible' as well

Hi Paizo

I'm afraid I succumbed to impulse purchasing and picked up Heroes of the Elemental Chaos from my local game shop. Would you be able to remove that from the above order (but please leave the fortune cards to ship with my next subscription, as intended)?

Cheers
Steve

Has anyone heard anything about this? It seems that Dungeon output has stalled somewhat in the last few weeks. I presume the rest of the Giant series remake is still coming out and hasnt been rescinded?

Would it be possible for a list of available Discount Codes to be available via a pulldown menu or something on the "Confirm Order" page?

I can go check my subscription page, copy the relevant code, then go place my order and paste it in, but if it wasnt too much trouble to include it at the confirmation stage, it would be easier to just pull down and select it from there. (It would also be a reminder of available credit as expiry dates loom - I dont have much call to visit the My Subscription page and didnt realise that's where the discount codes were stored).

I had this marked as a preorder and it seems to have now gone directly to backorder. Did I miss something? Or is there something screwy going on?

This seems to have the wrong blurb - a cut-and-paste of Hand of Corruption, by the look.

The latest Legends and Lore article. They seem to be setting the bar very high with regard to creating 'something for everyone'. I'm skeptical, but found this stated goal to be ambitious, to say the least:

"Second—and this sounds so crazy that you probably won't believe it right now—we're designing the game so that not every player has to choose from the same set of options. Again, imagine a game where one player has a simple character sheet that has just a few things noted on it, and the player next to him has all sorts of skills, feats, and special abilities. And yet they can still play the game together and everything remains relatively balanced. Your 1E-loving friend can play in your 3E-style game and not have to deal with all the options he or she doesn't want or need. Or vice versa. It's all up to you to decide."

That would be fantastic, if possible to achieve - especially if it's a simple matter to convert modules from any edition (one of 4E's greatest strengths, in my view).

Given the case reports, it seems clear that the 'Rare' category of miniatures is further stratified, with some of those figures being 'Very Rare' and occurring half as often as the more normal Rares.

In future sets (presuming this practise continues) would it be possible to provide the number of each of these subcategories beforehand? In my case, it's actually of more use than knowing what figures you're including, since in deciding how many cases to get I want to factor in how many of each mini I'd like to aim for.

There may well be stratification within the uncommons and commons as well, I guess. If that information is easy to provide, it would be appreciated (although it's of less interest to me, since I'm not worried about falling short in these categories).

Hi Paizo

I ordered The Trail of Cthulhu Keepers Screen in this order and received the Call of Cthulhu Keeper's Screen (which I also want, but already have sadly).

Could you look into this for me and, if the wrong item has been sent, please include the correct item at the next subscription shipment? There's no need to send it separately or anything.

Cheers
Steve

I thought people might be interested in this article.

There are links to the 'past' and 'present' articles which were also interesting to read, imo.

Hi Paizo

Do you have any idea on when single PF Battles minis will be available on the website and/or when Encounter packs are likely to be released?

Cheers
Steve

I've been keeping an eye on this - did it really just go from a preorder to a backorder, or is that some kind of glitch? :(

Hi Paizo

I'm not sure if this belongs in Website feedback or here, possibly both. When I placed the above order (Bestiary box preorder) I wanted to select "Hold for subscription shipment" option, but everytime the shipping options came up they would display for a second then blank out (giving me no option to change from the default).

Is that unusual? Or do I perhaps not have the option of choosing shipping options with preorders? I dont recall it happening with other preordered products.

Anyhow - would you please change the shipping option on this to ship with whatever subscription shipment occurs around the time of release?

Cheers
Steve

Any word on when this will be available?

I'm hoping to get it into my January shipment.

Is there any chance for a moderately up-to-date list of staff and their roles at Paizo? (In my perfect world it would include their messageboard avatar too, since that's generally how I recognise you).

I sometimes see new people around without knowing where they fit in. Similarly, I dont see people for a while and wonder whether they've left or moved into different roles.

Does anyone know of a reliable site which sells these individually?

Am I being dumb? I can't work out how to gift something from the paizo store. I'm sure I did it before and it was easy. This time I just had the opportunity to add a message (but it got sent to me). :(

Does anyone know of a reliable site which sells individual cards from this set?

I'm not sure if there was some clever thingy I didnt notice, but I just logged on to discover all the superstar forums open, round by round all the way back to 2008.

It seemed I cant hide a 'section' anymore if some of the subsidiary forums are open, which made it a little tedious to go through closing round by round through all the past years. Not a huge problem, I guess but it's only going to get worse..

I acknowledge this could easily have been user error - I've previously requested preexisting features on the website. But if it happens that it wasnt, is there any chance you could make it so that hiding the 'parent' forum automatically collapses all the subsidiaries if they're open?

Don't make Theme Park Fantasy MMOs unless you're happy with a huge initial spike followed by a big drop in players.

Warhammer Online (and Age of Conan, and Rift) are all theme park games. They have PvP, but PvP does not make a game a sandbox. The hallmark of sandbox games is persistence.

The more persistent impact your players have on the world the more like a sandbox it becomes. The fantasy theme parks limit persistence to character development and some limited crafting and house decorating.

Really, comparing sandbox games and theme park games is like comparing baseball and football. The similarities are far less important than the differences.

What are the differences?

I'm afraid I'm treating this whole topic more as an MMORPG tutorial than anything else, so apologies if this thread isnt much value. Nonethless (in the hope there's someone on the internet who might like to share their opinions about things...):

Have there been any successes/failures at implementing an 'expanding' world?

It seems to me that a reasonable objection to player-made-stuff is that the world has to be huge in order to give everyone room and not overly preference those who were able to play one hundred hours per week in the first month of the game's existence. A massive, 'empty' world seems like it would inevitably lead to repetitive, bland scenery (or repetitive, annoying 'wandering monsters') since actually crafting an interesting world with the intention of it soon being overwritten by players would just be a massive waste of effort.

One solution would appear to me to have the fringe of the map ever expanding (in an admittedly bland way, but hopefully out where nobody noticed except for when they wanted to build something). In future updates/releases of new material (I presume that happens relatively frequently?) new dungeons could be 'discovered' near those newly settled areas - some of which didnt even exist on the games release.

It may seem this would no doubt violate people's sense of verisimilitude, but I wouldnt really see that in a practical sense - I wouldnt imagine you seeing these extra areas being added on, although there might be a way through the swamp you didnt manage to find last time you were there.

No doubt there are other problems, but I'd be interested to hear what those have proven to be. My experience is pretty much restricted to MUDs and the addition of new areas there was always commonplace, though facilitated by the extremely restricted style of MUD navigation.

Is this common in MMORPGs? Doomed to failure?

Hi Paizo

Would you be able to look into this order for me and check that everything is ok? I would have expected it to ship by now and have other options if you're struggling to get anything in.

Also, would you delete the various gamescapes items from my sidecart please? It seems they've switched from preorder to unavailable which is disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. :(

Cheers
Steve